Tonight, it was as if Annie had deliberately dressed to outshine not only the guests but the soft furnishings too. The heavy silk drapes, fringed kilims, the hand-painted de Gournay wallpaper and mustard yellow velvet chairs made this one of the most opulent rooms in The Manor. Logs crackled and spat in the stone fireplace and, as Annie turned the electric lights off, bathed the room in a warm glow while she gave a toast.
‘To Kurt! The birthday boy!’ voices repeated around the table, to the clink of cut crystal.
On Annie’s signal, a very slight nod in the direction of the doorway, two aproned waitresses carried in an ornate chocolate cake lit with sparklers and candles – far too large for nine guests, a wedding cake practically – and placed it at the centre of the table. Freddie Hunter and Kyra Highway, arms around each other, wine glasses aloft with their contents sloshing on the table, burst into a surprisingly competent two-part harmony, encouraging the rest of the room to join in. They had spent the evening so far hooting with laughter at nonsense in-jokes and making friends with the waiters, who had all ensured they were constantly topped up. If you wanted to know the measure of a member, Nikki knew, just watch how they speak to the staff. Kyra and Freddie were on first-name terms with every single server within five minutes.
The birthday boy – wunderkind film producer Kurt Cox – seemed a little flushed, a little embarrassed by the attention. Thanks to the boyish mop of dark curly hair, the sweet, doughy features that did not look quite yet cooked, it was hard to guess an exact age. Film school student, you might think, if you saw him out on the street in New York or London in his usual parka and unlaced boots. Aspiring screenwriter, you may assume, if you spotted him earnestly hunched over his laptop in any coffee shop in the western world. He looked like the kind of young man you’d overhear enthusiastically explaining the film he wanted to make to a not-especially-interested girl in the kitchen at a party, getting in the way of everyone trying to grab a beer from the fridge.
In fact, Kurt Cox had produced – in Swipe Right – one of the most critically and commercially successful small-budget psychological thrillers of the decade so far. His follow-up, The Roommate, was the surprise hit comedy of last year. Only a week or two ago he had announced a deal with Netflix so big that Nikki had read about it in the Financial Times.
Even though this success was his own, Hollywood must surely have given Kurt Cox a friendly leg-up – as the son of a movie actress mother and film director father he was hardly coming to the industry cold. There were distinctive similarities between father and son, Nikki noticed; small mannerisms, if you watched the young man closely. The little flutters of the hands as he said something self-deprecating. The way he tilted his head slightly to the side for emphasis. The warm, toothy smile that started off as a twitch at the right-hand corner of his mouth.
‘Oh you guys, you really shouldn’t have, but thank you. We were never that big on birthdays in our house, so I honestly forget when mine is most years. But it means a lot that you care – Ned, Jackson, especially you both, as I know how close you were to Dad . . . are, I guess it’s still are . . .’ Kurt trailed off slightly and blinked. Was it Nikki’s imagination, or were his eyes glistening slightly in the candlelight?
‘He’s a good man, your father,’ Jackson said solemnly, lifting his glass and giving that lopsided grin. ‘Best I ever worked with. Truly, one of the greats.’
It was always weird, Nikki found, when she accidentally stumbled across one of Jackson’s films on the TV or on a plane – one of his comedies from the eighties （the time-travelling one, the one about a house party in a borrowed mansion） or his action roles from the nineties, or the more recent serious issues-y stuff – to observe how many of his own mannerisms found their way onscreen. Or was it perhaps the other way around? That smile, that trademark knowing smirk, for instance – had he always done that in real life, at dinner, or had some director once suggested it to him for a long-ago role?
‘You mean a lot to him, Jackson. You too, Ned – Home feels like a true home to me, my dad spent so much time in the clubs. I can remember watching cartoons in the Manhattan Home screening room when I was a kid. And the chocolate ice cream in Santa Monica Home.’ Kurt grinned.